The story of twenty five-year-old Marieta Ilieva reminds of a film scenario. When she was nineteen she went to America to fulfill her dream and become an actress. In the course of three years she was trying to get a working visa and on the day she got an approval Marieta met her love on the street. She spent over five years in Los Angeles and being a member of the New York Film Academy she participated in an American movie. Her boyfriend Tsonko spent many years in England. Later, they decided to return to their home town of Dobrich. Love, family and the tranquility in my home town made me return to Bulgaria, Marieta recalls:

We went to a small bakery during our trip to Milan (Italy) and we liked it a lot. Then we told ourselves that we could make a similar one in Dobrich, which is a relatively small town. I and my boyfriend decided to embark on this endeavor. It was harder than we had initially expected, but now we are quite happy with our business. There are many good bakeries in our town, but we mainly focused on the items made of puff pastry. Of course, we offer typical local bread such as rustic bread, wholegrain bread and brown bread. The Bulgarians like traditional food and it is very difficult to promote something that is not that popular in your region. That is why now we combine classic rustic bread with non-traditional pastries such as tangle bread with maple syrup.

Is it easy to start a business in Bulgaria?

We thought that things would happen much easier- you come up with a business plan, make some advertisements, promote your product and sell. However, we faced a series of difficulties in terms of contacts with institutions, finance and implementation. It was not easy at all, but we succeeded step by step. We made parts of the interior and the exterior ourselves. The logo depicting wheat spikes is handmade.  A friend of ours who is an artist made it for us.

Two young ladies Elitsa and Vladimira work at the bakery together with Marieta and Tsonko. The girls are very hard-working and zealous. They are very polite with our clients, Marieta says.

Marieta told Radio Bulgaria a funny story which happened on the day the bakery opened doors. One can learn a lot from the Bavarian bakeries as well as from the French ones. I should admit that I never intended to sell traditional Bulgarian cheese pastries (banitsa), but the truth is that when we opened the bakery on February 26 last year the first client who entered the shop said “Oh you don’t have any cheese pastries” and walked out, although our stands were full of French croissants with butter, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, olives and a great variety of German desserts and breads. Now we offer nearly 15 types of breakfast snacks, over ten types of bread and a rich variety of desserts. However, we adapted all items to the traditional local taste.

Marieta Mileva is proud with the Open Doors initiative: This is something new for our town. When we decide to make a new product we let our customers taste it for free first, Marieta went on to say and added:

I do not regret returning to Bulgaria. I still travel abroad, but here I found tranquility. At one point people feel the need of their family. They need to be surrounded by nice emotions and dear friends and in all honesty you face a more predatory environment when you are abroad. I never thought of returning to Bulgaria or my home city of Dobrich, but now I am quite happy with our business. To me, our bakery is an opportunity to show creativity and attitude and create something new. It is good to be unique with what you do and put your heart into it. It is nice to find your place in the world.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov